I def think Lewis was wary of Tuas left hook- would be a fool not to be, but Lewis had far too many skills to allow a one trick pony to take him out. With Rock I think he underestimated his power and his reach which was pretty usual. Coupled with the fact he was movie acting instead of training.. A focused Lennox in the rematch showed his level
There's a good book on the first half of Tua's career written by a journalist who was on location for a lot of his career. I think his theory was Tua got rocked in the first round and was focussed on survival from then on. Also he'd blown up so much that at the promo shoot for the fight he had to wear a lava lava pulled up high to cover his stomach - this can be seen in the promo shots. Consequently he spent most of camp losing weight rather than preparing for Lewis. The book goes into detail about his financial woes. Basically Kevin Barry and his financial advisor partnered to buy property for Tua. Tua thought they were buying on his behalf as they didn't explain they were actually buying the property under his company, of which they were substantial shareholders. It must be about as white collar as boxing financial robberies get. https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=16797220529&searchurl=kn=Chris+mirams&sortby=17
The best version of Tua was actually the young Tua from the time frame of the Ibeabuchi fight. He had head movement, fluidity and a good work rate, as opposed to being an overweight plodder later on.
Lewis was clearly dazed before he made it to the ring for Rahman. Just look at his performance, he was laughing, trolling and clowning till he got knocked out for it. For Tua, he was fully focused and prepared for Tua's one big shot gameplan.
This content is protected ^ lewis threw a right hook to tua's left side of the body at around 2:21 of the first round and thats what basically ended the fight for tua, probably bruised his ribs and never recovered the whole fight.
Yep, that's it...Tua was known to be able to left hook anyone unconscious if they got careless, same wasn't really thought of Rachman, don't know why though, his right hand had serious weight/power behind it !